


My Love to Keep Me Warm

by dollylux



Series: Fic Advent Calendar 2014: Brothers, Soulmates, and Other Such Sexiness [24]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: ALL THE KNITTING SAMMY GIVE ME ALL OF IT, Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester UST, Jealous Sam Winchester, Knitting, Knitwear Kink, M/M, Pining Sam, Pre-Series, Pre-Slash, Teenchesters, Yarn Fetish, i have it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-03 03:10:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2835830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollylux/pseuds/dollylux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's girlfriend makes him things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Love to Keep Me Warm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kelios](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kelios/gifts).



> Day twenty-three of my fic advent calendar. Prompt: feuds.
> 
> This is the beginning of what will probably be my long history of writing Sam Winchester knitting/crocheting/with yarn. Be warned and be prepared.
> 
> For V. Thank you for sharing this insane and random indulgence with me! ;)

Marianne Dubois is a horrible person.

Well.

Maybe not _horrible_. She’s almost seventeen and volunteers at the local animal shelter here in Auburn Hills, Michigan and drives her little sister Sydney to ballet and is the vice president of student council and is pretty nice to Sam usually, even when he lurks around in the living room where she and Dean curl up together to watch a movie on the weekends.

But he still kind of hates her.

She’s gorgeous, tall and thin like a dancer where Sam is short and pitifully small, waiting for his growth spurt. She’s got this amazing cocoa skin and pretty freckles like Dean’s and a cute nose and big dark eyes and a luscious mouth and a reddish fro that she wears scarves and headbands around and she dresses like she’s not in high school, in cute, unusual clothes she finds at thrift stores and listens to music that Sam’s never heard of.

And Dean is absolutely nuts about her.

Sam sits in the living room on Saturday nights while some sad-funny quirky movie he’s never heard of plays on the TV, glaring with all his might at where Marianne is wrapped around Dean on the couch, his long fingers stroking up and down her arm, all his attention on her instead of the movie.

Sam sits where he is, alone and young with a pimple on his chin and hormones raging just under his skin, and hates himself.

 

Marianne makes things, you see.

She’s crafty. She says her mom is, too, that she’s always been into making things, into gluing and painting and drawing and sewing and putting glitter on things. And now she makes things for her boyfriend. For Dean.

Around Halloween, she’d made them matching costumes, Sally and Jack Skellington from _The Nightmare Before Christmas_ , had painted their faces carefully and the whole school talked about their costumes for weeks, or so Dean had said. Good for them.

There had been a drawing next, of their hands clasped with some poem written around it, and Sam had barely managed not to roll his eyes when Dean showed him.

Next came the shellacked collage of pictures of the two of them with cute little words and hearts all over it that Dean apparently put up in his locker. Who the fuck is this person his brother is turning into, the one who dresses up like cartoon characters for Halloween and hangs cutesy things in his locker?

He thinks maybe Marianne is a succubus, that she’s slowly draining Dean’s soul from him or something. He confronts Dad about it one evening when Dean is out with Marianne _again_ , tells him his suspicions and presents him with a list of reasons for thinking so. Dad had just laughed, messed up Sam’s hair a little and shaken his head as he walked to the kitchen for a beer.

Okay, so maybe he’s a little irrational when it comes to his brother. He can’t help it. If Dean was your brother, you’d be in love with him, too. 

 

Dean comes home one day in early December wearing a snug beanie made of dark hunter green yarn that makes his eyes an almost devastating, bright shade of the same color. Sam squirms where he’s sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table, lost in pre-algebra problems before he’s staring up at his brother like he’s an answered prayer.

“Hey, kid,” Dean smiles, reaching over and snagging a few Cool Ranch Doritos from the bag next to Sam’s math book. Marianne is there, of course, dressed in thick brown tights with a bunch of zigzag stripes running across them, a navy sweater under a dark green cardigan that just so happens to match Dean’s new hat. Sam grips his pencil tighter and forces himself to look back down at his paper.

“Hey,” Sam mumbles back, frowning at his scratch of numbers before he dares a glance up at Marianne, forcing a smile onto his face. “Hi, Marianne.”

“Hey, Sam.” She sinks down onto the couch and tugs her boot-clad feet up to sit cross-legged. She pulls out a textbook with Abraham Lincoln on the cover and a spiral-bound notebook. “Workin’ on pre-al?”

“Mhmm.” Another awkward shift, the long fall of his dark hair falling over his eyes as he tries to focus again on his homework. Dean turns on the TV and settles down beside Marianne, not even pretending to try and do homework as he flips through the channels. 

They’re quiet for a long while, the only sounds coming from the television where Dean has landed on _Family Feud._ Sam watches them, the way they settle in close together, the way Marianne drapes her long legs over Dean’s lap, the way Dean’s hand settles on the back of her neck and rubs gentle and slow, like they’re a boring old married couple. Sam finally can’t keep quiet anymore, can’t concentrate long enough to even pretend to do math.

“Where’d you get the new hat, Dean?”

He looks away, keeping his expression locked firmly on boredom, ignores the way his pulse kicks up when he feels Dean looking at him.

“Marianne made it for me. Isn’t it awesome?” Dean sounds all stupid and lovey-dovey and Sam nearly gags when he hears them kiss. Jesus, get a room.

“Yeah. It’s great.”

“Doesn’t it bring out the color in his eyes? He’s just got the prettiest eyes.” Marianne’s turn to sound all lovesick, and Sam doesn’t hold in his sigh then.

“I didn’t know you knew how to knit,” Sam says in a desperate attempt to keep them from just making out in front of him, finally looking up and seeing Dean’s fingers pushed into her soft, tightly curled hair and their noses touching. It hurts, it hurts like crazy, and Sam still hasn’t learned how to make it stop.

“Oh, I don’t,” she finally replies, pulling back from nuzzling with Dean to look over at Sam, giving him a patient smile, like she pities him and his lonely, pathetic self. “I crocheted it. I still haven’t really figured out how to knit.”

“Hm,” is all Sam can think to say back, and Marianne curls back down around her homework, leaning into Dean’s touch and writing in her notebook. He stares at them for a minute longer, an idea forming in the back of his mind, a petty one, but it’s enough to get him through the rest of the afternoon without pulling his or anyone else’s hair out.

 

“Can I help you?”

Sam jumps, nearly knocking over a carefully stacked display of expensive yarn, but he reaches out at the very last second to catch it, his heart thundering in his chest. He glances over at the woman beside him with the small, retail-friendly smile, his cheeks flushed. He’s been planning this all week, been thinking about it, and he’s here. Now he just has to _do it_.

“Y-Yeah. Yeah, I.” He’s shaking, stupid, childish nerves taking over. He has to look back down, to reach out and fumble his fingers over the soft yarn. He takes a deep, slow breath to calm down. “I want to learn how to knit?”

The woman seems surprised, or so her silence would indicate. She recovers quickly enough, reaching behind her for a piece of paper on the counter. “Well, we’ve got beginners classes starting up after Christmas, if you’re interested. There’s one on--”

“No. No, I. I kind of need to learn soon. Like… like right now.” He dares another look at her, letting her see the plea in his eyes. “It’s for a Christmas present.”

Her expression softens, her smile growing bigger. “Are you making it for your girlfriend for Christmas?”

He pauses, figuring letting the specificities of this go unsaid is easier than trying to explain to a retail employee that he’s in love with his brother and he’s making it for him to try and outdo said brother’s perfect girlfriend.

“...Yeah?”

“C’mon,” she says, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder and guiding him over to the book rack near the couches in the corner. “We’ll get you all fixed up.”

 

He sits on his bed at the house later that evening, surrounded by two thingies of soft, deep red yarn ( _skeins_ , the lady had said), a package of wooden needles, and a book on how to get started knitting.

He opens the book and starts reading, reads all the instructions carefully before he even opens the pack of needles and tugs the label from the yarn. He takes a deep breath, staring down at the yarn clutched in his sweaty hand and the needles held in the other like a weapon.

Okay. Okay. He can do this.

 

Two hours later, he’s yanking out yet another tangle of yarn, growling in frustration and throwing it across the room and kicking the book off his bed.

“FUCKING STUPID SHIT.”

“Samuel! Language!” comes Dad’s voice from the living room. Sam deflates, sighing down at his aching hands.

“Sorry, Dad!”

He grabs his copy of _Lord of the Flies_ , distracting himself with homework so he doesn’t have to think about it for awhile.

 

After school the next day he’s back at it with a renewed determination, and by the time Dad yells that the pizza’s here, Sam’s gotten 12 stitches casted on and he’s knitted half of his first row. He runs into the kitchen, scarfs down a couple of slices, and holes back up in his room.

He’s gotta get this figured out.

Twelve stitches turn into fourteen, which on the next row somehow turns into seventeen. By the time he has a mysterious thirty-nine stitches on his wobbly, lumpy triangle of knitted… thing, he’s almost in tears and ready to burn all the yarn that has ever existed and call up Marianne and tell her she can have Dean if she wants him.

Dean comes into the room without knocking, because it’s what they do. Sam sits up straight, his eyes huge, the damning knitting caught up in his hands, and he’s so drained and upset that he can’t even come up with a half-assed lie about what he’s doing.

He hovers in the doorway, eyebrows raised at the sight of Sam with a nest of yarn in his lap and a disaster of it on his needles.

“...Sammy?”

Sam drops the knitting and yanks the blanket down at the bottom of the bed up, covering up with it completely and talking to Dean through it.

“Go away!”

There’s a pause and then the sound of Dean’s shuffling, socked feet crossing the room followed by his slight weight on the bed next to Sam’s legs.

“What’re you doin’?”

“Sucking.”

“Sucking at what?”

“Everything!”

Dean laughs but it’s gentle, his hand coming up to rest on Sam’s knee through the blankets. Sam shivers.

“C’mon, dude. You don’t suck at _everything_. You are the absolute best at finding the cheapest cereal in the grocery store.”

Sam sighs, kicking out lazily at Dean and missing by a mile.

“Shut up, Dean.”

“ _And_ you have the loudest burp probably ever. In history.”

“Dean!”

“And, y’know. You probably spank your monkey more than anybody else, too.”

Sam flies up at that, the covers falling away, his face beet red from oxygen deprivation and from Dean talking about _him masturbating_ , oh _God_.

“What do you want?! Leave me alone!”

Dean’s smirking, obviously very pleased with himself, but there’s something under it, like he’s genuinely interested in what Sam’s doing.

“Anything I can help with?”

Sam sighs, whole body slumping over. He reaches under the covers and pulls out the massive mess of the yarn and his “knitting,” handing it over to Dean with no small amount of shame.

“I can’t do it.”

Dean stares down at it, the needles and the yarn suddenly looking so appealing because they’re in Dean’s hands. 

“Dude, what are you talking about? Little old ladies all over the world can do this with like, seven fingers and two teeth and no eyeballs.”

“Well, apparently I’m an idiot and I can’t, so.” He pulls his legs up and leans back against the headboard to wrap his arms around them, burying his face against his knees with a sigh.

“If you want, I can call Marianne. She can probably--”

“No!” Sam’s head shoots up, his eyes huge. “No, don’t. She’s probably like… building orphanages for homeless children or something.”

Dean grins, amused instead of being offended, one of his perfect eyebrows lifting.

“Sammy, it’s like eight at night. She won’t build any orphanages at least until morning.”

“I hate you,” Sam whispers without any heat, dropping his head back to his knees.

“Hey, c’mon. Lemme watch you knit a line or whatever it’s called. Maybe I can figure out what’s going wrong.” Dean grabs the book on the bed and leafs through it, eyes scanning the pages while Sam watches him, trying to figure out of this is a trick just so Dean can make fun of him for this.

He finally picks the knitting up again, gathering up the yarn around his fingers and starting up again slowly, his fingers awkward, stitches still wobbly, but they’re getting better. He gets to the end of the row and turns around to start the next one, practically jumping when Dean snaps his fingers and points.

“A-ha! I see it.” He gets up to come sit closer to Sam, squinting down at the stitches and nodding after a minute. “Yeah. See, you’re picking up a stitch-thing right at the beginning and at the end where there isn’t one. You’re pulling up stuff from the row before and knitting it like it’s a part of the row, and it’s not. So it’s making it bigger and bigger every time.”

Sam lifts his work, his hideous, upside-down triangle, and he realizes that Dean’s right. He’s totally, totally right.

“Son of a bitch,” he says softly.

“And, dude, your yarn is a nightmare. What the fuck?” Dean grabs the crazy bundle of yarn and pulls at it, trying to get some kind of order back to it. “You know you’re supposed to ball this stuff after you buy it, right? Did it come in those big loops?”

“Yeah.” Sam takes it from him, frowning down at it and feeling like such an idiot.

“You’ve gotta ball it. C’mon, get all your shit together and let’s go in the livingroom where there’s light. I’ll help you. It’s easier if there’s two people doing it.” He stands up and Sam looks up at him in wonder.

“You’re gonna help me?”

Dean gives him a smile that makes Sam feel like lightning is coursing between them, like he’s not alone in this consuming feeling, and when Dean reaches up to touch Sam’s head, it takes everything in him not to lean into it, to nuzzle at Dean’s hand and his warm body.

“Come on, Sammy.”

 

They get settled in on the couch, all the lights in the living room on, and Dad has thankfully gone to bed early. Dean starts to untangle the mess Sam’s made of his skein of yarn while Sam pulls all of the knitting he’s done out. He starts to wind the yarn into a ball, and they work through it together slowly until all the yarn is untangled and balled up tight, ready to go. 

Sam grins at Dean, giving the ball of yarn a squeeze as his cheeks flush.

“Thanks.”

He starts to knit again, keeping Dean’s advice in mind. Dean turns the TV on, getting caught up in a _M.A.S.H._ rerun while Sam knits. They stay that way for a couple of hours, Sam’s strip of knitting getting longer and longer until it’s running across his lap and touching Dean’s socked foot.

“Hey, Sammy?”

“Hmm?” He’s moving fast now, fingers confident and quick, eyes trained on his work.

“Whatcha makin’?”

Dean’s got his hand on the bottom of the knitting, squishing the soft warmth of it, looking over each line of stitches like it matters, like Sam’s doing a good job and he’s appreciating it.

“A scarf.” Sam tucks up into the corner of the couch, loving that Dean is sitting close instead of on the other side, that he sits next to Sam the same way he sits next to Marianne. 

“Who’re you makin’ it for?” Those eyes lift and find Sam’s own, holding him there and Sam can’t even begin to lie to him.

Sam grabs the end of the scarf and lifts it up to wrap around Dean’s neck just once, loving how the burgundy of it makes his mouth look redder, even juicier, and Sam has to look away so he doesn’t try to taste it.

Dean beams at him.

“For real? It’s for me?” He looks down at it, touching the scarf with both hands now, admiring it with a grin that’s too big to be faked. Sam has never been prouder of himself in his life.

“I just… just wanted to make something for you.”

Dean reaches for Sam then, tugging him closer and tucking him under his arm. Sam goes there so willingly, nestling in against Dean’s side and relaxing there. Dean’s fingers push into his hair, nails against his scalp, and Sam goes back to knitting even as the rest of the scarf twines around Dean’s neck, fingers moving more slowly because one arm is tucked against Dean’s body, but it’s worth it.

 

Marianne comes by before school a couple of days later, ready to catch a ride in the Impala with Sam and Dean, and she stops when she comes into the house, her eyebrows raised.

“Dean?”

“Yeh?” He tugs his jacket closed and hands Sam his backpack, turning to face her with a quirked eyebrow of his own.

“Where’d you get the scarf?”

Sam busies himself with the straps on his bag, his cheeks hot, a smile pulling on his lips.

“Sammy made it for me.” There’s a grin in Dean’s voice, and he’s right there against Sam suddenly, cupping the side of his head and pressing a sloppy but sweet kiss to Sam’s temple before he’s heading for the door.

Marianne is left staring at Sam, surprise etched all over her pretty face.

“I didn’t know you knew how to knit, Sam.”

Sam shrugs as casually as he can, grabbing his Five-Star notebook from the coffee table.

“I make Dean stuff all the time.”

He walks by her, making the briefest glance of eye contact with her, but the tiny, tiny glimpse of jealousy there on her face makes it all worth it.

He grins to himself as he hurries outside, running to catch up to his brother.


End file.
